How Do I Gather and Save The Photos?

-- by Loretta --

This can be done by scanner or digital camera.

Scanners are relatively inexpensive ($50 and up). The quality of the printed picture is determined by the printer, not necessarily the scanner. Scanning can be done in your home. The picture must be able to lay in the scanner, though it does not have to be removed from the page. 8X10 or smaller pictures in frames can remain in the frame to scan. A person can scan about 30 photos in one hour.

Digital cameras are faster than scanners. Many Genealogical/Family History libraries offer their services with scanners and digital cameras to scan and take pictures of photos that you bring to them, even slides, and then you pay them for the disk or CD that you bring home with you. You don’t have to remove the pictures from the scrapbook or the frame. A floppy disk will hold 6-10 images and they may charge a small amount for every disk they provide. The digital camera’s density may be diminished compared to scanning the image but often, the difference is negligible. A person can do about 100 photos in one hour. For $400 or less, a person can buy a digital camera that will do an adequate job.

Slides can be taken to a photo company to be converted to a print for $1.50 per slide. They can be scanned in at home with a slide scanner at 30 pictures per hour. They can be projected onto a white wall at an 11X14 size and then take a picture of it with a digital camera. This can be a rate of 100 pictures per hour.

JPG format (pronounced jay-peg) is a recommended ‘file type’ format for saving the photo. It is much smaller than some other formats, but has more than sufficient resolution for most printers. Keeping your photos at a smaller format keeps the memory size of your document as low as possible.

Once you scan or digitize the picture, then use your software to enhance the picture. You can remove scratches, lighten or darken the picture, add a frame around it, crop it to include only the parts of the picture that you want. Store the picture in the same folder as your document. Label the picture for easy categorizing (put their name first)... Hollis 1982 at the beach... Hollis 1978 with his children... Hollis 1999 at Argentina. Florence 1988 in Logan... More distant people label with full name... Herman A. Thorup 1885 in Denmark